I've always hated the smell of cleaning supplies. Some people view it as a smell that represents a fresh start, a clean slate. But I view it as the source used to scrub away something bad, something that hurt, or caused distress. The smell means something bad happened. Bleach. That was the first thing that hit me as I floated into consciousness.

Strange sounds filtered through my mind, rhythmic and eerie. "Turn that off," I muttered at my morning alarm. But the sound continued, insistent and consistent in its parade to be noticed. I tried to turn and slam my hand against my phone to kill the noise, but the movement was rewarded with a blaze of fire eating at my left arm and ribs.

Hissing through clenched teeth, my eyes fluttered open, taking in the dark space around me. I didn't recognize where I was. It was too dark to see clearly. But I discovered a few things as I scanned the room. One, I wasn't in my own bed. Two, the incessant beeping wasn't coming from my phone. And three, a figure shrouded in darkness stood in the doorway.

I screamed, terrified, and tried to scramble out of the bed. Everything burned as I moved and before I was even halfway out of the bed, my legs got tangled in the sheets and I fell head first towards the floor. "Woah!" A voice cried, alarmed.

I slammed into a pair of arms, and struggled to get free. "Let me go!" I shouted.

"Summers! CALM DOWN!" the voice bellowed, drowning out my screams as his voice filled the room.

I looked up into a pair of dark blue eyes, my own, wide-eyed. "Aiden?" I whispered, confused.

He stared down at me for a long moment, one arm tucked under my knees and the other cradling my back. "It's like you want to get more injuries," he said, his voice unusually loud with my head cradled against his chest.

It took me a second to work past the morphine in my system and when I did, the words came out in a set of sputters. "You told me that there was another stalker. And then I wake up to find you standing in the doorway like some creepy... well stalker." I looked around the room, the details coming into focus in dim lightning. I had a cast on my left arm, and wore a thin gown, making me very aware of everywhere my body touched Aiden's. "Where am I?"

"The hospital." Aiden's eyes flashed, craking with lightning in the middle of a storm. "I thought I told you not to do anything stupid."

I stared up at him, raising my chin defiantly, unflinching under his gaze. I didn't regret what I did and I refused to apologize for it. Our faces were close, from where he held me in his arms as our staring contest continued. "I didn't want Tate to die."

Aiden seemed to lose his ability to stand and gently placed me back on the bed before slumping onto the edge of the bed next to me. "Aiden?" I asked. "Where's Tate?"

He ran his fingers through his hair, and in the low room light, I spotted the deep purple bruises from lack of sleep sitting under his dusty lashes. "He's here." He motioned towards the hallway. "A few doors down."

"Can I see him?"

Aiden shook his head, eyes on the ground. "No one can see him."

"Why?" I squeaked, growing panicked.

His words were a mere whisper. "He's in surgery."

My heart hammered wildly. "Will he be okay? Is he okay? How long will he be in surgery for? What is he in surgery for? When did he go into surgery? How long have I been out? He better be okay because I have to punch him for tricking me into jumping out of the car!"

"Summers," Aiden said, cutting off my panicked chatter. "He's alive."

I let out a deep breath I didn't realize I was holding and fell back against the pillows, exhausted. "He shattered a few bones in the crash." His voice caught, and he cleared it, pausing before he continued. "Surgery started a few hours ago. You've been here for six hours."

"Is he going to be okay?" I whispered.

He shook his head, looking lost for the first time since I met him. "It's too soon to tell."

The air was heavy between us. Both of our thoughts rushing to Tate in the other room, fighting for his life.

I closed my eyes, not bothering to wipe away the tears that fought past my closed lids and rolled down my cheeks. I had tried so hard to get him to safety, but it wasn't enough. He was at death's door and it was all my fault. "I'm so sorry Aiden," I whispered into the darkness.

The bed shifted and I felt Aiden's thumbs wipe away my tears. "I know. But it's not your fault."

I shook my head and gently pushed away his hands, staring up at his blurry figure through my tears. "It is. I'm the reason he's in there."

"You're right."

Aiden's words felt like a sledgehammer, destroying what little composure I had. He wiped more tears away, ignoring my hands attempt to push him away. "He'd be dead if you hadn't pulled him from that car."

His eyes shined, hinting at the rage of unshed tears inside. "You saved his life Laliana."

He really needs to work on his dramatic pauses.

Aiden swallowed, his face so raw and vulnerable that it made my heart ache. He placed his forehead to mine. "Thank you."

I felt so undeserving of his closeness. Of those words. I pushed him back with a weary sigh. "Don't thank me. He wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for me." I felt more broken inside than I looked on the outside. Tate had become my best friend.

Some friendships are instant, bonding you so fast that you sit there surprised, wondering how you did life without them. It happens in an instant. Some people believe in love at first sight, I believe that some friendships work the same way.

I wished our roles were reversed. Tate was better at making everyone smile. And right now, Aiden needed that. Not some girl crying and scared and broken.

"Summers. You cannot blame yourself for the actions of others." His voice was calm. So infuriatingly calm.

"YES I CAN!" I shouted before falling into a fit of coughs. My lungs still burned but it didn't matter. None of my pain mattered. Not when I compared it to Tate. Please be okay Tate... please. "How are you not angry with me?"

"You are angry enough for the both of us," Aiden responded, his tone dark.

"Stop pretending that everything is okay! I know you are angry!" I protested.

Aiden's hands rolled into fists on his lap. "Summers," he warned. He stood and let out an unsteady breath. "You should get sleep. It's four in the morning."

He untangled the blanket and gently placed it across my body. A strange contrast to the angry furrow of his brow.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again," I said, my voice losing some of its edge under his gentle attention.

He adjusted the morphine drip, untangling the tube that I had managed to get caught in my hair. "That makes two of us." He paused, taking me in with a look that told me he couldn't quite believe I was there. "I am upset. Not angry."

I waited, knowing he wasn't done. I could tell by the way he ran his fingers through his hair again, a tell I had learned meant he was trying to process and put his words in order. "You butt-dialed me right before the crash."

His eyes grew distant as he stared at a bland painting on the wall. A painting that was identical to every painting hung in every hospital room across the world. "I heard you fall out of the car... I heard you screaming for Tate... and then you just went... quiet."

He gently pulled my hair free of the morphine drip tube and tenderly pushed several strands out of my face as he sat down next to me again. "You scared me," he said his thumb brushing against my cheek. "I thought you were both dead."

The beeping spiked, and I realized in a moment of embarrassed panic that we now had a very loud heart monitor, displaying my inner wants like a freaking megaphone. Stupid machine! Don't betray me like that!

Aiden jumped back, startled by the noise. "Did I hurt you? Do you need the doctor?" His eyes went wide in alarm.

I shook my head, relieved that my red face was mostly in shadow. I was totally thrown by the sudden change on Adien's face that I started laughing. "No... I'm fine..." Just having a heart attack caused by an attractive person. Carry on. There's no helping it.

He sat down slowly, a confused look on his face. "Are you sure?" he asked, unconvinced.

"You're just too hot for my heart to handle," I blurted thanks to my morphine-filled body, making my filtering processing nonexistent.

Aiden stared at me, wide-eyed. "Um... what?"

I opened and closed my mouth several times. "I mean... yeah, there's no saving that is there?"

Aiden went quiet, trying to process what I had just said, and like the amazingly eloquent human that I was, I stuttered on, digging my own grave as fast as I possibly could. "Why on earth do you look so surprised? Have you looked in the mirror? How do you not make half of the population burst into flames when they look at you?!?" I slapped my hand over my mouth and then used my uninjured arm to yank the blanket over my head.

The room was quiet for a long, awkward moment. "Summers?"

"Just... go away. Go away and let me die of embarrassment in peace," I muttered from behind the blanket.

I felt Aiden's fingers grip the top of the blanket and tug it down, revealing my mortified face. "I'm not going anywhere." There was a spark of fire in his eyes, vulnerability clear in their ocean blue. "Not until I say a few things..."

---

Clearly, Laliana is a terrible liar. Are you a good or bad liar?